Posts Tagged ‘Black September’

As the world watches and celebrates victorious Olympic athletes in Rio de Janeiro, Jews everywhere solemnly reflect on the murders of eleven Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. During these solemn days around Tisha B’Av, the Munich Massacre is more than a reminder of our people’s long, painful history. We also remember our identity not as victims of our enemies, but as a holy Nation with a holy purpose in this world.

Professor Shaul P. Ladany was one of the few Israeli athletes who survived the gruesome “Black September” Massacre in Munich. He describes in full his experiences of this extraordinarily horrific attack on this week’s edition of “Conversations with Heroes.” Ladany is the only member of the Israeli Olympic team who survived both a Nazi concentration camp and the massacre of 1972 at the Olympics in Munich. He was also an officer in the Israeli Armed Forces, and on this program he will explain how that experience shaped decisions he made while evading the Black September terrorists.

Ladany’s legacy is more than his illustrious career as a world-record-setting racewalker and two-time Olympian; he also obtained an Ivy League education and became chairman and professor of Industrial Engineering at Ben Gurion University in Israel. He has authored over a dozen scholarly books and 110 scientific articles, and holds U.S. patents for eight mechanical designs.

At least nine people died Friday night, among them a 15-year-old girl, in a terror attack at the Olympia Shopping Mall, built on the site of the Olympic village where 11 Israeli athletes were murdered by Arab terrorists in 1972.

The Arab Black September terrorist group took the Israeli athletes hostage and murdered them during the 1972 Olympic Games held at the Olympic Stadium next door to the mall where three shooters with “long-barreled rifles” opened fire at shoppers and employees.

It is not known how many more people were injured at the mall, located in the north-western Moosach district of Munich, Germany.

Officials locked down and declared a state of emergency in the city as security personnel broadened their manhunt for the terrorists believed to be on the run after their attack. It came just two days after a government minister had warned of more “lone wolf” attacks after a terror attack on a train earlier in the week.

The crowded shopping center was jammed with customers throughout the 135 stores and eateries on both floors when the shooters entered at around 6 pm.

Many customers and employees were still in the mall after the terrorists fled on foot, possibly entering a nearby metro train. The area around the mall was sealed off by police but the attackers managed to escape.

The German government requested additional security forces from neighboring Austria as its government lowered its flag to half mast to honor the memories of the victims. Massive numbers of heavily armed special operations forces, Munich police and other security officers converged on the city. Taxi drivers were warned not to pick up passengers.

Public transportation was shut down, including train, tram and bus lines in the city. The streets of Munich were virtually clear. Residents were asked to stay off the roadways and drivers have been asked to leave the highways around the city as well, Fox News reported.

At least some parts of the country’s border were sealed off in an attempt to prevent the terrorists from escaping Germany.

Police confirmed a report that one of the shooters shot and killed himself about a mile away from the mall. A backpack was located next to the deceased, however, prompting officials to send a robot to check the body and the bag in order to ensure there were no explosives.

An alert went out to doctors and nurses in Munich to report to their hospitals for a mass casualty attack. “Law enforcement is overwhelmed,” one security source told a news analyst at Fox News.

No terrorist group claimed responsibility for the attacks, although Da’esh (ISIS) supporters posted joyous tweets of celebration about the rampage. However, Fox News analyst Sebastian Gorka said a colleague in Germany who analyzed audio from the scene said one of the terrorists, who spoke in German, used an East German accent.

It’s not known whether there were Israelis or other Jews on the scene at the time of the attack, approximately an hour and a half before the start of the Jewish Sabbath.

The U.S. Consulate instructed American citizens to “shelter in place” and avoid the area.

German police requested that media refrain from posting any live coverage of events in order to prevent the attackers from receiving information about law enforcement counter terror movements.

This is the second terror attack in Germany in a week; an Afghan teenager wielded an ax on a train earlier in the week in an attempt to kill passengers in the country. Four people were physically injured and more than a dozen others suffered traumatic shock in that attack.

Friday was also the five-year anniversary of the massacre in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, a far-right extremist. Anger against political refugees from the Middle East and Africa has been rising in the far-right sector.

On the Twitter social media networking site, some users were tweeting rumors that at least one of the attackers was wearing “black boots” and was screaming about “foreigners” and “refugees.” Officials said they are treating the event as a ‘terrorist attack’ but emphasized they had not yet identified the attackers.

If Hillary Clinton is elected President, her positions on Israel can be determined now by the Jews in Hollywood who are her biggest financial backers.

All of them are leftists with American-based dreams of Arabs and Jews living in peace and love while racism in America goes from bad to worse.

The one exception to the Hollywood Hit List is Haim Saban, who is on the right side of the left. It is not coincidental that he was born in Egypt and lived there 12 years before his family made Aliyah to Israel.

No one understands the Arab culture better than Sephardi Jews who are from Muslim countries. That explains why pure Ashkenazim like Shimon Peres think exactly like “liberal” American Jews who view peace as a handshake between Yasser Arafat and Yitzchak Rabin.

Among those American Jews are Hollywood moguls Spielberg and Katzenberg, both of whom donate generously to Jewish causes and passionately love an Israel that exists in their dream of a country that allows them to feel comfortable as Jews in the Diaspora.

Soros needs no introduction. He is the sugar daddy for J Street, the self-acclaimed pro-Israel lobby that promotes peace with Hamas and has come out in favor of the nuclear agreement with Iran, coined as the ObamaDeal.

Hillary Clinton has lots of support from Hollywood Jews, among them Barbra Streisand, who warmed the hearts of Jews around the world two years ago with her version of the Aveenu Malkeinu prayer in one of the two-month-long 90th birthday parties for Peres.

She also is a big donator for promoting Arab-Jewish relations, a seemingly lofty ambition that in reality is based on the idea of the American melting pot where everyone destroys their roots in order to be a giant tree without roots.

Is it any wonder why assimilation in the United States is near 70% and Arab-Jewish intermarriages are becoming more commonplace in Israel?

Katzenberg is known to be a very close with President Barack Obama and contributed heavily to his election campaigns.

Spielberg undeniably has promoted Jewish causes but his latest film on the Munich Massacre is making him more of an outcast to anyone to the right of Soros.

The movie described the Mossad agents’ hunt for the Black September terrorists who murdered 11 Israeli athletes at the Olympics in Munich in 1972.

The London Guardian reported two months ago:

Although almost nobody has yet seen the film, it has already been criticized by both Israelis and Palestinians fearful of reports about how they are portrayed.

However, the director told Time Magazine that the film is a ‘prayer for peace,’ and that the biggest enemy in the region is not the Palestinians or the Israelis but the intransigence that exists between the two sides.

If Clinton wins the Democratic party’s nomination for president in the 2016 race, it is clear where she will lean when it comes to Israel.

Plans for a memorial in Munich to 11 Israelis and a German police officer murdered at the 1972 Summer Olympics there were unveiled on Wednesday, the eve of Rosh HaShanah, at the Bavarian Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs.

The planned hall of remembrance is slated to be built near the site that housed the games and will cost 1.7 million euros (approximately $2.25 million). It will allow visitors to learn about the events and the victims — 11 Israeli athletes and coaches along with the police officer — as well as to view the site of the failed rescue attempt at the Furstenfeldbruck airfield. Ultimately the airport’s tower will be included in the memorial, which is scheduled to be completed by 2016.

The memorial was designed by a team under the auspices of the ministry in consultation with relatives of the victims, the consul general of Israel, experts from the concentration camp memorial at Flossenburg, the Jewish Museum in Munich and the Bavarian State Ministry for Political Education.

Israeli Foreign Ministry department manager for Western Europe Ilan Ben Dov called the 1972 attack “a trauma for my entire generation” and added, “Every Israeli group that comes to Germany as part of a youth exchange and educational cooperation should visit this site.”

An online petition headlined “Tell the International Olympic Committee: 40 Years is Enough!” is urging the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to honor, at the Olympic Games this summer, the memory of 11 Israeli athletes who were murdered at the 1972 Olympics in Munich by the Palestinian terrorist group Black September.

The Jewish Community Center of Rockland County, N.Y. initiated the petition. The Jewish Federations of North America is asking communities to support the petition, which is attempting to gather 1 million signatures. So far a little more than 6,500 have signed.

Written by Ankie Spitzer, the wife of Andrei Spitzer, who was killed at the Munich Olympics, the petition reads:

“I am asking for one minute of silence for the memory of the eleven Israeli athletes, coaches and referees murdered at the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich. Just one minute — at the 2012 London Summer Olympics and at every Olympic Game, to promote peace.”

“The Jewish Community Center movement is deeply involved in an effort to create a worldwide viral response to a wrong that has not been addressed since 1972,” JCC Association President and CEO Allan Finkelstein told JTA. He added, “Let us finally get the Munich 11 acknowledgement and respect they deserve from the international sports community.”

The JCC Association has recognized the Munich 11 during every Maccabiah Games since 1995.

In an official letter to the IOC, Israeli Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Danny Ayalon also asked that the London 2012 Olympic Games begin with a minute of silence in memory of the murdered Israeli athletes.

Ayalon stressed that past events in the history of the Olympic Games, good as well as bad, should be commemorated in a fitting manner.

Ayalon said that the Olympic Games are based on the principles of equality and brotherhood and added, “We must remain vigilant against acts of hate and intolerance that stand in contrast to the ideals of the international Olympics.”

Ayalon gave a copy of the letter to Ankie Spitzer and Ilana Romano, the widows of two of the murdered athletes, and expressed his support of a petition they initiated calling for the minute of silence.

A campaign by the widows of two Israeli victims of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre have had their petition for a memorial at the 2012 Olympic games rejected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Ankie Spitzer, widow of murdered Israeli wrestler Andre Spitzer, and Ilana Romano, widow of murdered weightlifter Joseph Romano, issued an appeal for a minute of silence at this year’s games, in memory of the violence which marred the Games 40 years ago.

Spitzer told Reuters that the IOC refusal is due to concern that Arab countries would publicly protest the memorial to the murder victims by walking out. “They say we bring politics into the Olympics, which is not true, because I didn’t ask them to say that there were 11 Israelis,” Spitzer said. “They tell us that the Arab delegations will get up and leave, to which I said: ‘It’s okay, if they don’t understand what the Olympics are all about, let them leave.'”

On September 5, 1972, Palestinian Black September terrorists stormed the Olympic Village in Munich, and killed 11 Israeli weightlifters, wrestlers, and coaches – two during the surprise attack on the Israeli dormitory, and 9 more in a failed hostage rescue attempt.

“Hi, I’m Richard Gere and I’m speaking for the entire world. We’re with you during this election time,” said the radiant film star. “It’s really important: get out and vote,” Gere continued, his words simultaneously translated into Arabic. Then, switching to actually speaking in Arabic, he concluded, in a strong American accent, “Take part in the election.”

Gere was speaking in a commercial that was broadcast repeatedly on Palestinian television in January 2006, just prior to one of the first municipal Palestinian elections since the late Palestinian terror leader Yasir Arafat held what were widely regarded as sham local elections about thirty years prior.

This time, Gere was urging Palestinians to vote in local ballots essentially split between the Hamas terrorist organization, responsible for dozens of suicide bombings, and the Fatah organization, responsible for dozens more.

Gere’s co-stars in the commercial were Chief Palestinian Justice Taysir Tamimi and former Greek Orthodox Church spokesperson Atallah Hanna. Tamimi is a well-known terror supporter who regularly delivers fiery sermons on Palestinian television calling for the downfall of America and Israel. Hanna was fired from his church position after being accused of directly aiding terror organizations.

Gere’s appearance on Palestinian television was sponsored by One Voice, a far-left organization run by an Israeli businessman.

Palestinians indeed took Gere’s advice and voted en masse, electing Hamas legislators by a large margin. Hamas officials stated they would use their election victory to lead the Palestinians in their jihad against the West and against Israel.

Abu Abdullah, considered one of the most important members of Hamas’s so-called military wing, told me of Gere’s appearance, “We thank Richard Gere for his efforts in the historic election of the Palestinian Islamic resistance [Hamas].”

Since I don’t know Gere personally, I can’t determine whether he realized he was urging voter turnout in elections between terror groups in one of the most terror-saturated societies the world has ever known or whether he knew Hamas would utilize the legitimacy granted it by the international community’s support of elections, urged on by Gere himself, to demand foreign aid and worldwide diplomatic status for its terror organization.

When I was a kid growing up in a Modern Orthodox household in Philadelphia, I used to observe Hollywood and the music industry with quiet amusement, watching as lamebrain celebrities involved themselves in causes they probably couldn’t spell and made all sorts of pronouncements about issues they largely didn’t have the capacity to understand.

But it wasn’t until I moved to the Middle East in February 2005 and started talking to terrorists that I fully realized just how much damage some of our “antiwar” celebrities are causing.

A lot of terrorists have satellite televisions and advanced communication equipment and are quite adept at browsing the Internet. In today’s wired world, it’s very easy for anyone speaking any language to be updated almost immediately about all kinds of events.

This includes America’s terror enemies, who pay particularly close attention to news of U.S. domestic opinion regarding our government’s Mideast policies. They understand that in the U.S. the fight for public opinion is everything – change public opinion, get American citizens to lose their drive to fight, and the government and military ultimately must change as well. The terrorists time their attacks in part on the status of our national debate and on the American news cycle.

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While the terrorists didn’t know much about most American movies, I wasn’t very surprised when they told me they had heard of Steven Spielberg’s 2005 drama “Munich,” which depicts the Israeli government’s secret retaliation for the 1972 Munich massacre of Israeli Olympic athletes by Black September gunmen.

The terrorists said that though they hadn’t seen the movie they were familiar with it since it deals with Palestinian “resistance” organizations and since the filmmakers, including writers Tony Kushner and Eric Roth, sought out and interviewed some Munich terrorists.

Until I came along, the terrorists assumed that since Spielberg and Kushner are Jewish, the movie was an Israeli propaganda piece, demonizing Black September and depicting the Israelis as victims.

They were quite glad to hear that “Munich” in fact focused almost entirely on the Israeli response to Black September’s operation – on Israel’s assassinations of Black September members – and not on the massacre itself. I told them Spielberg and company boasted that their movie was “balanced,” presenting both sides as moral equivalents.

I read to the terrorists a quote from Spielberg regarding the depiction of Black September terrorists as “militants,” even though they murdered eleven Israelis in cold blood in an act of terror that stunned the world.

“I think the thing I’m very proud of,” said Spielberg in an interview with Time magazine, “is that [screenwriter] Tony Kushner and I and the actors did not demonize anyone in the film. We don’t demonize our targets. They’re individuals. They have families. Although what happened in Munich, I condemn.”

The terrorists responded to Spielberg’s statements, but they wanted me to clarify that they hadn’t seen the movie and based their conclusions on the depiction of “Munich” as I described it.

“We think Spielberg understands that the key is in the Israeli occupation and that no retaliation can stop the Palestinian resistance,” said Al Aksa chief Ala Senakreh. “I did not see the film and I do not need to in order to understand that the coming generation will fight the occupation.”

Hamas activist Ghassan Adassi commented, “The Israelis don’t understand what Spielberg understood, that we do not kill because we like too. We fight because we want to live and the Israeli retaliation and crimes only give us more reason to fight. It seems like Spielberg wanted to say that Israelis are breaking the international law and are pushing the Palestinians to more attacks.”

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As a Mideast-based reporter for the popular news site WorldNetDaily.com and a weekly columnist for The Jewish Press, I routinely talk to terror leaders about various news events related to our neck of the woods. I garner their quotes, which usually include vicious anti-American and anti-Israeli propaganda and all kinds of wacky conspiracies

I was amazed when several times I would obtain quotes from terrorists about the day’s news and then see posted on WorldNetDaily quotes on the same topic from television personality Rosie O’Donnell during her stint as a host of ABC’s “The View.” Incredibly, O’Donnell often made almost the exact same statements as the terrorists.

One of many examples was in March 2007, when transcripts were released in which captured alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessed to the mega-terror attacks and 31 other plots and attacks.

“I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z,” Mohammed said in a statement. He also took credit for personally beheading Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and for planning multiple other attacks since the early 1990’s.

Immediately after Mohammed’s confessions were released, I called the terror leaders, who unanimously insisted the confessions were false and were manipulated and forced from Mohammed by a desperate Bush administration.

Abu Jihad, a West Bank leader of the Islamic Jihad terror organization, said President Bush “is under a lot of pressure for victories, so I am sure as part of changing the American public opinion [Bush] needed to orchestrate this confession so he can say he is succeeding even though he is a failure.”

“I am sure the Americans tortured Mohammed and forced him to say these untrue things. Isn’t it strange it took three years since his arrest for the supposed confession? Intelligence agencies are known to make people say they are guilty even though they know it’s not the case,” Abu Jihad said.

Continued the Islamic Jihad terror leader: “With all the respect we have for al-Qaeda, the story of 9/11 remains open. There are many questions about the role of Israel and the Zionists in the affair. America just wants to lie to everybody so they can put people at ease by claiming they caught the culprit.”

Abu Jihad’s sentiments were parroted by several other terrorists I interviewed that day. Then I read a transcript of O’Donnell’s statements on the Mohammed affair from the day’s edition of “The View,” in which she suggested our government elicited a false confession from the alleged terror mastermind.

Pointing out that Mohammed was arrested in March 2003, O’Donnell asked, “Why hasn’t he admitted it until now?”

“They didn’t allow reporters there and he hasn’t had a lawyer,” O’Donnell added, insinuating that Mohammed’s confession was coerced.

“I think the man has been under custody in secret CIA torture prisons and Guantanamo Bay where torture is accepted and allowed – and he finally is the guy who admits to doing everything,” said O’Donnell. “They finally found the guy, it’s not that guy bin Laden, it’s this guy they’ve had since March 2003.”

Suggesting the U.S. was looking for a scapegoat, O’Donnell said of Mohammed, “for whatever he did or didn’t do, he is not the be all, end all of terrorism in America. And our government has not found the answer in this one man.”

When Iran seized fifteen British sailors accused of violating Iranian waters, the terrorists spewed crazed theories that the affair really was orchestrated by a war-hungry Bush administration, seeking an excuse to go to war with Iran.

Lo and behold, later that day I read a transcript from “The View” in which O’Donnell implied the Iranian seizure was a hoax to provide President Bush with an excuse to go to war with Tehran.

“Yes, but it’s very interesting too that, you know, these guys, they went into the water by mistake right at a time when British and American, you know, they’re two, they’re pretty much our biggest ally and we’re considering whether or not we should go into war with Iran,” said O’Donnell.

The terrorists had never heard of O’Donnell, but I detailed her views for them very accurately. They immediately noticed how frequently her statements and theories jibed almost word for word with their own stated views.

I read to the terror leaders multiple Rosie gems, like the time she argued that jailed terrorists are people too and asserted that the U.S. “robs them of their humanity.”

“They’ve been treating them like animalsthey have hoods over their heads, they torture them on a daily basis,” she said.

On one episode of “The View,” O’Donnell said Americans shouldn’t fear so-called terrorists, calling them mothers and fathers.

“Faith or fear, that’s your choice,” she said. “You can walk through life believing in the goodness of the world, or walk through life afraid of anyone who thinks different than you and trying to convert them to your way of thinking.”

“Don’t fear the terrorists. They’re mothers and fathers,” said O’Donnell.

The terrorists were absolutely ecstatic. At first they thought I was making up the Rosie quotes. Even after hearing unpatriotic statements from other celebrities, they still couldn’t believe an American would say the kinds of things Rosie uttered. It took me some time to convince the terrorists that Rosie O’Donnell really does exist.

The one Rosie statement that won all the terrorists over beyond the others was when I told them she’d raised questions on her blog about the 9/11 attacks, implying the buildings were brought down in part to destroy documents incriminating oil giant Enron and other major corporations.

After pointing out conspiracy “factoids” regarding the World Trade Center’s Building No. 7, which collapsed after the two larger “twin towers” fell, O’Donnell wrote that building 7 “contained offices of the FBI, Department of Defense, IRS (which contained prodigious amounts of corporate tax fraud, including Enron’s), U.S. Secret Service, Securities & Exchange Commission (with more stock fraud records), and Citibank’s Salomon Smith Barney, the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management and many other financial institutions.”

The terrorists were in love with Rosie.

“I agree with everything this O’Donnell said,” said Adassi.

“Regarding September 11, there is no way the American intelligence and administration was not aware of what was going to happen that day. How come the Jews and Israelis disappeared from the buildings? Was it by miracle? They knew that an attack would take place. This meant that Zionist elements and the leading elements of the administration who are aligned with economic companies and interests, like Bush and Cheney’s companies of oil, were very interested that the attack would succeed in order to start their campaign for the oil of Iran and Afghanistan.”

Of course, Jews did not “disappear” from the buildings.

Brigades chieftain Senakreh commented, “Many people have been saying this since the first moment it happened. [But] when it comes from persons like O’Donnell it takes a more serious significance. I guess she knows what she is saying.”

The terrorists went on to invite O’Donnell to come live among them in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where they said they would ensure she is treated “like a queen.”

“We welcome Rosie O’Donnell to live among us and to get to know the truth from being here, like many American peace activists are doing. It would be a great honor for us if she comes and live with us,” said Senakreh.

“I think that she is a mother and she knows what she is saying. We are not in love with killing, we like peace, we are human beings, it is the occupation that obliges us to do what we do,” Senakreh added.

Adassi agreed and also extended an invitation to Rosie. “She will be most welcomed if she decides to visit us or live here and to get to know what your allies, the Israelis, are doing against our people. We thank her for telling and presenting the truth.”

At that point I broke the terrorists’ hearts by informing them their beloved Rosie is an outspoken lesbian who proudly lives with her female partner.

The terrorists then said O’Donnell could only move to Gaza if she ceased her “Satanic ways” and agreed to abide by the rules of Islam regarding sexual relations.

“Let her still come,” said Adassi. “We will teach her the right ways. She is already on the right path.”

Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief for WorldNetDaily.com. His weekly Quick Takes column appears on page 2 of The Jewish Press. This essay was adapted from his book “Schmoozing With Terrorists,” available at major bookstores and Amazon.com.